


Gifts

by faithlessone



Series: Stormheart - (M!Trevelyan/Cassandra) [10]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Fluff, SO MUCH FLUFF, more soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:33:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24323605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faithlessone/pseuds/faithlessone
Summary: While trying to give Cassandra a gift of his own design, he finds her reading, and figures out a gift that will make her even happier...
Relationships: Cassandra Pentaghast/Male Trevelyan, Male Inquisitor/Cassandra Pentaghast
Series: Stormheart - (M!Trevelyan/Cassandra) [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1756030
Comments: 7
Kudos: 29





	Gifts

“Good book?”

She leaps up from her stool as if he’s suddenly manifested from thin air, almost throwing the offending tome into the bushes behind her in an effort to stop him seeing the cover. When she speaks, though, her voice is steady.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He can’t help the slight smirk, the tentative teasing. “Wait… are you blushing?”

“What would I have to blush about?”

“You tell me.”

She drops her head. “It’s of no interest to you, I’m certain.”

He waits. If there’s one thing he’s learnt about the seeker in the many months they’ve journeyed together, it’s that pushing her for answers, explanations or opinions only ever makes her clam up tighter.

“It’s a book,” she continues after a few long moments, stooping slightly to pick it back up.

“I can see that.”

She turns it over and over in her hands, more nervous than he’s ever seen her before. “It’s… one of Varric’s tales. _Swords & Shields_. The latest chapter.”

He doesn’t recognise the title. To his slight shame, the only one of Varric’s books he’s actually read is _Tale of the Champion_ , and he’d only read that recently, _after_ he’d actually met Hawke. Mostly just to get some context for the wild stories she and Varric had told at the camp that night in Crestwood. (It was a little too flowery for his taste, but he will never, ever let Varric know that.)

Still.

“So you like to read? What’s wrong with that?”

He was hoping for one of her rare smiles, but instead she looks embarrassed, can’t even meet his eyes.

“It’s frivolous. There are more important things for me to do.”

Frustratingly, just as he’s about to console her, to remind her that there is more to life than their mission, Dorian crosses the courtyard, having clearly been eavesdropping on their conversation.

“That’s just her favourite,” he declares.

“Nobody asked you, Tevinter!” she yells.

He laughs. “I couldn’t finish the last one you lent me. I actually feel dumber for having tried.”

Brennan tilts his head, ready to step in if Cassandra has any further objections, but Dorian continues walking. Silently, he wonders how many people are involved in this little book club of hers, and what he would need to do to get an invitation. He’d even read more of Varric’s flowery tales if it would give him more excuses to talk to her.

“It’s literature. Smutty… literature,” she continues, when the other mage is firmly out of earshot. Then, with a just a single note of begging in her voice, “whatever you do, don’t tell Varric.”

The weird thing is, until that moment, he hadn’t actually intended to do anything of the sort. But as soon as she says it…

“Maybe _I_ should read this book,” he suggests, light-hearted.

“You?” She sounds almost genuinely distressed, and again, it only makes him even more intrigued as to its contents.

“Why not me?”

“You’re the Inquisitor.”

He nods. It’s an old argument between them by now. How he, of all people, should hold himself up as an example to the rest of the Inquisition. She usually uses it to try and stop him getting rip-roaring drunk in the tavern with Bull, or playing pranks on the advisors with Sera, or playing strip-Wicked-Grace with Varric, Josie and whoever they can con into joining them.

She also knows by now that it rarely, if ever, works on him.

“Oh, I see.”

“They’re terrible,” she sighs. “And _magnificent_. And this one ends in a cliffhanger. I know Varric is working on the next one, he must be!” Then she tilts her head, looks up at him, as if a proposition has just occurred to her. “You! You could ask him to finish it, _command_ him to…”

He’s already planning how to bring it up to their favourite dwarf, when suddenly her expression and tone darken.

“Pretend you don’t know this about me.”

Refusing to let his heart sink, he doesn’t push the subject, turning instead to the reason he had _actually_ approached her in the first place.

“It’s forgotten. But actually, do you have some time? I had a… favour I needed to ask of you.”

She gives him a suspicious glare.

“I’ve been working on something in the undercroft. Well, I suppose, to be more honest, Harritt and Dagna have been working on it, but under my instruction. I would like your… professional opinion.”

Her suspicion doesn’t abate in the slightest, but she follows him anyway.

He’d set his armourers to working on this particular project a few days earlier, but the preparations had taken a good deal longer. Now that it comes to actually showing her, he finds himself increasingly nervous, but he refuses to let it show. He is, however, glad that he didn’t make a big display of it – didn’t go for the curtain reveal that Dagna had suggested. The last thing he wants right now is to make Cassandra even more uncomfortable.

Instead, he’s had Harritt lay out the pieces on the work bench, as if it’s any other usual fabrication. The armourer himself is over on the other side of the room, tinkering with something else on the tinting bench, and Dagna is nowhere to be seen. (All of them had assumed that her… enthusiasm would be detrimental to the reveal. Luckily.)

He points the workbench out to Cassandra, hanging back a little so as not to crowd her.

She looks over the armour pieces perfunctorily, but he can barely breathe as she lifts one of the greaves to take a closer inspection and then puts it down again.

“Well?” he prompts her, after she has stepped back, glancing back at him over her shoulder with a slight… glower?

“I had never imagined you in plate armour, Inquisitor.”

What?

Does she think…

Huh?

He can’t help himself frown in confusion.

“I assumed it would not be flexible enough for you. For your casting,” she continues, picking up one of the gauntlets and turning fully towards him. “And here. I thought you required your hands clear for the anchor?”

“It’s not… it’s not for _me_ ,” he splutters finally, ignoring the fact that Harritt’s shoulders are starting to shake with silent laughter in his peripheral vision.

Her face darkens again, her eyes falling.

“Then…”

“I had it made for _you_.”

She almost drops the gauntlet, recovering swiftly and placing it back on the workbench with hands that are only ever-so-slightly trembling.

He takes a step toward her, and then thinks better of it, coming around to the side of the bench, giving her a clear run at the exit if she needs it. Reaching out to the shoulder piece at the furthest point of the table from her, he runs a finger over the smooth metal.

“It took a while to find enough, but the metal is pure stormheart. Strong and tough, but also because… well,” he trails off, looking up just as Harritt slips away, leaving them alone in the undercroft.

At the soft click of the door shutting, she looks up, glancing behind her to check that the coast is clear before catching his eye.

“Well?” she prompts.

He hopes his cheeks haven’t coloured as much as he thinks they have. Even if they have, he can’t lie to her. For one, he’s next to useless at it, and for another, he was the stupid one who carried on talking when he could have stopped at tough.

“It’s beautiful,” he admits, honestly. It’s not strictly the full truth.

She sees through him, just as she always does.

“There are plenty of strong, beautiful metals that are far more common than stormheart… Brennan.”

His name.

He can count on one hand the number of times she’s used it since their night under the stars. Only when they are strictly, strictly alone, and _never_ without some kind of prompt.

“My speciality is storm magic.”

Her face doesn’t change, but somehow, the look in her eyes softens. It might only be his imagination.

“I am aware.”

Oh, so she’s going to make him say it?

“I’m not the best at protecting you on the battlefield, so, at least, this way… it’s _almost_ as if I am.” He wants to hang his head, but he can’t risk looking away from her; missing something.

“I do not need new armour. My own is perfectly serviceable.”

This was an argument he’d prepared for, and he lets himself smirk.

“I’ve had new arms and equipment made for everyone else, which you well know. Bull let me outfit all his Chargers too. We’re fighting things that none of us could imagine, and it’s likely to only get worse as this campaign progresses. Your armour _is_ serviceable, but this is stronger, tougher, it will protect you better. Which will let you protect us better. Protect _me_ better. Because I can’t do this without you.”

Her expression is still guarded, but she nods sharply, turning her attention back to the bench.

“What is this made of?”

It takes him a moment to figure out what she is referring to, distracted a little by the change of subject and her fingers reaching out to the leathers that are also lying on the work bench.

“Ah… dragon scales. The one you… _we_ took down in Crestwood. And before you complain, I had Harritt make some new things for Vivienne, Varric and Bull from the one we took down in the Approach, and Dorian has some from the one he helped kill in the Hinterlands. It’s almost a rite of passage now.”

Is she smiling?

“And you?”

“Me?”

“What did you get?”

He knows he’s blushing again, just a little, but he can’t help it. She pulls it out of him.

“My new staff is made of dragon bone. The Northern Hunter breathed lightning.”

There is just a suggestion of a smile around her lips, so slight that he’s certain he’s imagining it, and then she nods again, matter of fact. “Will I be allowed to make adjustments, or will that hurt someone’s delicate sensibilities?”

They both know she means him and not Harritt, but he was expecting more of an argument, to be honest. Having to talk her round, convince her that it was in the Inquisition’s best interests.

“Anything you like,” he promises.

She nods sharply for the third time.

“Thank you, Inquisitor.”

His heart sinks at the formality, and he tries not to let it show. Maker’s bloody balls, he wasn’t hoping for her to throw her arms around him or anything like that, but… He’s been trying to think of a gift to give her for months. Since long before he caught her crying. Something special, something she’d appreciate. He’d started collecting the stormheart for this _himself_ , weeks ago, before Harritt pointed out how much they’d need for a full suit of plate.

Is it too much to ask for a proper smile?

He immediately hates himself for even thinking it.

She doesn’t _owe_ him anything. It was a gift, freely given, and he’s a cad for being upset that she isn’t more grateful. If the new armour protects her from a single blow that would have caused her current set to crumple, that will be thanks enough for him.

Swallowing heavily, he forces himself to smile instead. “You’re welcome. I’ll let you… get back to what you were doing.”

As soon as she’s clear of the keep, he goes straight to Varric. His first idea for a gift might have fallen a little flat, but she all but commanded him to give her something she’d prefer instead. If it’s within his power to obtain, he will. 

“What can I do for you, your Inquisitorialness?” Varric asks, closing the journal he’s writing in.

He briefly contemplates easing into the subject, as he’d intended to earlier, but he’s too anxious, and if he doesn’t get this out immediately, he might lose his nerve.

“Cassandra is waiting for the next issue of _Swords & Shields_.”

A look of pure confusion crosses Varric’s face before he recovers, smirking. “I must have heard that wrong. It sounded like you just said that Cassandra read my books.”

“She’s a pretty big fan, in fact,” he admits.

“Are we talking about the same Cassandra? Tall, grumpy Seeker? Likes stabbing things?” He pauses. “Wait, did you say the romance serial? She’ll be waiting for a while, then. I haven’t finished it and wasn’t planning to. That book is easily the worst I’ve ever written. The last issue barely sold enough to pay for the ink.”

He’s not above begging Varric for a one-off manuscript, if it comes to it, but he’s had luck in the past flattering the dwarf’s ego. It’s worth a shot.

“Well, _Cassandra_ seems to be hooked on it.”

“And I honestly thought a hole in the sky was the weirdest thing that could happen. So… you want me to finish writing the latest issue of my worst serial. For Cassandra.” His face almost splits, he’s grinning so hard. “Oh, that’s such a terrible idea, I _have_ to do it.”

Brennan only narrowly resists the urge to punch the air in victory.

“On one condition,” Varric adds. “I get to be there when you give her the book.”

Void.

He’d already started picturing how he was going to do it. Set up something with the two of them, alone. Starlight. Flowers, maybe? He was going to ask Dorian for some suggestions based on the books she had recommended to him.

With Varric there, however…

He shakes it off.

“You’ve got a deal.”

The dwarf all but waves him away. “I’ll get to work then. You know, the fact that the book is terrible just makes it more worthwhile, somehow.” 

*

More than a few days pass before he hears from Varric again.

However, he has no idea how long it _should_ take to write a volume, even for a professional author, and guesses that it would be the height of discourteousness to chase it up, given that Varric is mostly doing it as a favour to him. Even if it takes weeks, or months, he believes it will be worth it.

The armour is finished, to her measurements and a few extra specifications, before the book. Harritt keeps him informed as to its progress, and Cassandra’s grudging but growing appreciation as it takes its final shape. The exchange of his choice of fabric (infused vyrantium samite) for hers (royale sea silk) surprises him a little, but he doesn’t mind. Whatever makes her comfortable. He won’t hold his breath for any public gratitude, but if she chooses to wear it instead of her current set on their next expedition, he’ll know he did something good.

It won’t be long before they have to set out again. Hawke has requested the Inquisition’s presence in the Western Approach, and preparations are in full swing. Which, unfortunately for him, means long hours of meetings in the war room, with Cullen, Josie and Leliana pretending they aren’t arguing with each other.

He’s just thinking about heading to the tavern for a large mug of ale after yet another indeterminably long war council meeting, when Varric stops him at the keep door.

“Got a moment?” he asks, and there’s a twinkle in his eye that can mean only one thing.

“Is it done?”

Varric chuckles gently. “Is it done? It’s a masterpiece. Best work I’ve done in a while, and by that, I mean the worst. Plenty of heaving bosoms and swooning maidens to make her happy. I almost don’t want to give it to her. I’ll never write anything so bad again.”

“Thank you, Varric,” he insists, shaking the dwarf’s hand and only getting mildly winded when he’s swung into a manly half-hug instead. “I mean it. You have no idea how much this means to me.”

“Oh, I _know_ ,” Varric replies, smiling significantly. “That’s why I wrote it so quickly. Just let it spill out of me. My publisher can never know. She’ll be demanding everything in half the time from now on. I still can’t believe it. Cassandra. Of all people. _Swords & Shields_.”

“Be nice to her,” he warns, trying to make it sound like a command, for all it comes out as a plea.

“The very soul of it, don’t worry, Firefly.”

He turns and strides away down the steps, leaving Brennan to catch up.

Cassandra rises from her stool, incredibly suspicious (even for her) as he and Varric walk over.

“What have you done now?”

He’s about to answer, when Varric cuts in. “I get it, Seeker. You’re still sore after our spat.”

Void, had they really not got past the Hawke issue yet? He makes a mental note to insist that they are both in his next expedition party, which thankfully won’t be hard. Nothing like a long trek across Thedas and weeks of eating from the same stew pot to air out any lingering grievances.

“I’m not a child, Varric. Do not suggest I’m without reason.”

Varric seems genuinely a little apologetic. “A peace offering: the next chapter of _Swords & Shields_. I hear you’re a fan.”

He offers her the tome. Thicker than Brennan had imagined it would be, given the speed at which he said he had written it, and the griping he had done about doing it in the first place. Professionally bound too, with a cover and everything, which he hadn’t been expecting. Varric had really gone above and beyond the favour that had been asked of him.

Though he’d been imagining surprise, perhaps even shock, he isn’t prepared for the _anger_ Cassandra directs his way as she says, “this is your doing.”

“I was hoping you’d be happy about it.” He tries not to let the defeat he feels show. Maybe this _was_ a bad idea after all.

Varric shrugs, retracting his hand. “Well, if you’re not interested, you’re not interested. Still needs editing, anyhow.” He begins to walk away, and Cassandra suddenly snaps.

“Wait!”

Smirking, Varric turns back. “You’re probably wondering what happens to the knight-captain after the last chapter.”

Cassandra _gasps_.

He doesn’t think he’s ever heard her do that before.

“Nothing should happen to her,” she insists vehemently. “She was falsely accused!”

“Well, it turns out that the guardsman…”

“Don’t _tell_ me!” she grumbles, striding forward and plucking the book out of Varric’s grasp.

The dwarf clears his throat, visibly pleased with himself. “This is the part where you thank the Inquisitor. I don’t normally give sneak peeks, after all.”

Cassandra looks over at him like she’d entirely forgotten he was there, steeling herself for a few long moments before she manages to speak again. “I… thank you.” One of those rare, rare smiles graces her lips, and he feels like _singing_.

But Varric’s still there, so instead all he says is, “this was everything I’d hoped.”

She looks down at the book again, already distracted. “I wonder if I have time to read the first part?”

Varric dismisses himself, but Brennan barely hears what he says, too enthralled by the sight of Cassandra settling down to start reading, a look of pure joy on her face.

He put that there.

(Well, Varric did, technically, but Varric wouldn’t have written the book for her if he hadn’t asked; wouldn’t have even known to write it at all, so he’s counting it.)

He’s already planning how to put it there again.

There’s a lot of dragon bone in the stores, the same bone that made his staff. And some more stormheart, to match her armour. If she has a hand in it from the beginning, maybe she will be more inclined to appreciate…

A sword & shield of _their_ design as well?

**Author's Note:**

> (Yes, this is my take on the "Guilty Pleasures" quest. Fic inspired by my playthrough, in which the cutscene popped literally just after I'd made Cass some gorgeous Stormheart and Dragon Scale armour. I think she preferred the novel!)


End file.
